The invention relates to active acoustic attenuation systems.
Active acoustic attenuation is accomplished by sound wave interference. Undesirable noise propagating down a duct is attenuated by the introduction of cancelling sound into the duct which ideally is a mirror image of the undesirable sound, to thus cancel same. For further background, reference is made to: Warnaka et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,906; Davidson, Jr. et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,025,724; "Active Noise Reduction Systems in Ducts", J. Tichy, G. E. Warnaka and L. A. Poole, ASME Journal, November 1984, pp. 1-7; "Historical Review and Recent Development of Active Attenuators", H. G. Leventhall, Acoustical Society of America, 104th Meeting, Orlando, November 1982, "Active Adaptive Sound Control in a Duct: A Computer Simulation", J. C. Burgess, Journal of Acoustic Society of America, 70(3), September 1981, pp. 715-726; and "Echo Cancellation Algorithms", Gritton and Lin, IEEE ASSP Magazine, April 1984, pp. 30-38.
In prior systems, the cancelling speaker is typically mounted to the outside of the duct, or connected to the duct by a wave guide. However, in these configurations, the back of the cancelling speaker must be enclosed to prevent the acoustical noise radiated from the back of the speaker from generating additional undesirable noise outside the duct. In addition, the adaptive control process that is used to generate the cancelling signal can be adversely affected by acoustical reflections from distant elements in the overall duct system. Furthermore, active attenuation is most useful on low frequency noises and thus must be used in combination with separate passive silencers, upstream and/or downstream of the cancelling speaker, to obtain attenuation over a broad range of frequencies. Passive silencers are well known in the art, for example Sanders, "Silencers: Their Design and Application", Sound and Vibration, February 1968, pp. 6-13.
Wanke U.S. Pat. No. 3,936,606 shows a speaker in a duct, and mounting structure positioned to block the backward pressure wave. There is also shown a cone diffuser positioned axially oppositely the apex of the cone diaphragm.
The present invention addresses and solves the above noted and other problems. A hybrid active silencer is described that incorporates active and passive silencing in a single unit. The cancelling speaker is located within a silencer structure that has been designed to eliminate radiation from the back of the speaker outside the duct. The invention also acoustically isolates the active attenuation system from distant reflections in the duct system to simplify the adaptive control process. The invention also provides sound attenuation at the higher frequencies where active attenuation is more difficult. The complete hybrid silencer provides effective silencing over a very broad range of frequencies. Various advantageous constructions and features are provided. The invention is particularly useful with the active attenuation systems in co-pending application Ser. No. 777,928, filed Sept. 19, 1985 for "Active Sound Attenuation System With On-Line Adaptive Feedback", and co-pending application Ser. No. 777,825, filed Sept. 19, 1985 for "Fully Adaptive Active Attenuation System".
The invention enables the use of omni directional speakers and microphones, and is amenable to various types of complex sound structures and environments. This is desirable because unidirectional speaker or microphone arrays are more expensive. Also, simple time delay modeling has only limited application, particularly in view of the increasingly complex sound environments actually encountered in the field.